Corporate Media

Is Bezos Breaking WaPo?

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Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan 2/2/26

Headline:  “Is Jeff Bezos going to destroy the Washington Post? It sure looks like it”

Subhead:  “He has the chance to be the steward of a national treasure, but he’s blowing it”

“. . .I worked on staff at the Post for six years, until 2022, as its media columnist, after admiring the paper for decades; it was an inspiring place to work, and I got to know its readership and its staff from the inside.

“It breaks my heart to see what’s happening now, and has been happening for more than a year.

As a major round of newsroom layoffs is threatened – losses that would further weaken an already decimated staff – Bezos is doing what should be unthinkable. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/02/jeff-bezos-destroy-washington-post

Violent Death Routine to Mainstream?

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Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson, 1/30/26

Headline: “Beyond Corporate Media, Journalists Are Stepping Up and Speaking Up About ICE”

“As millions around the world, fresh off watching real-time footage of federal law enforcement murdering Renee Good, saw federal agents murder Alex Pretti, CBS viewers got a headline (1/24/26): ‘Person Dead After Shooting in Minneapolis Involving Federal Immigration Agents.’

You can check your calendar; it is 2026. And yet corporate media still think we’ll fall for that passive voice business, wherein law enforcement are…there…and people just kinda die. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/beyond-corporate-media-journalists-are-stepping-up-and-speaking-up-about-ice/

Has Concepts of the News?

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Article in The New Republic by Alex Shephard, 1/30/26

Headline: “What Bari Weiss Doesn’t Get About CBS News”

Subhead: “Her plan to focus on ‘scoops of ideas’ will only make the news network’s offerings more like (pretty much) everything else in media.”

“At an all-staff meeting on Tuesday, CBS News’s editor in chief Bari Weiss—perhaps the record-holder for the fastest the word embattled has ever been appended in front of a new job title—laid out her vision for the network she had taken the reins of only a few weeks earlier. . .”

“With her new charges in attendance, Weiss finally revealed her vision board for the future of CBS News, and the watchword is ‘scoops.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/205904/bari-weiss-scoops-cbs-news

Was She Wrong on Epstein Suicide?

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Article in AlterNet by Carl Gibson, 1/29/26

Headline: “Epstein reporter reveals ‘one of the most suspicious aspects’ of his death”

“Before he died in prison, convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly attacked in his cell, extorted by his cellmate and slipped a handwritten note into a book.

That’s according to Miami Herald investigative journalist Julie K. Brown, who initially broke the story that led to the first arrests of Epstein and his chief accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. In a Thursday post to her Substack entitled “Why I don’t believe Jeffrey Epstein Killed Himself (Part 2),” Brown delved into Bureau of Prisons records about an apparent suicide attempt that took place not long after he arrived at New York City’s Metropolitan Corrections Center in the summer of 2019. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/epstein-reporter-suspicious/

Media discuss “help” or havoc?

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Article in FAIR by Ben Fernandezm 1/29/26

Headline:  “US Media Keen on Iranian Unrest—Less So on US and Israel’s Role in It”

“. . .On January 10, Donald Trump—fresh off his abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—took to his preferred social media platform to showcase his signature manic reliance on random capitalization and exclamation points: ‘Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!’. . .”

“The protests have since dissipated, without any successful ‘help’ thus far in the form of regime change or US/Israeli military attack, although Trump has dispatched a ‘massive fleet’ to the Middle East ‘just in case.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/us-media-keen-on-iranian-unrest-less-so-on-us-and-israels-role-in-it/

WaPo Twisting Slowly. . .

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Article in Status by Natalie Korach, 1/28/26

Headline: “The Post’s Audience of One”

Subhead:   “As Jeff Bezos continues to snub The Washington Post, the mood inside the newsroom has darkened—though staffers are pressing on with not only public, but behind-the-scenes appeals to the billionaire, Status has learned.”

“Over the past several days, as reports about The Washington Post’s looming layoffs have reverberated throughout the industry, staffers on the newspaper’s sports desk have quietly begun receiving phone calls from the section’s leadership. In the private conversations, according to people familiar with them, management has all but encouraged journalists to start looking for jobs elsewhere. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/washington-post-staffers-cuts-jeff-bezos-campaign

CBS, Does She Get It?

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 1/27/26

Headline:  “Bari Weiss tries to win CBS staffers’ trust amid ‘noise’ over 60 Minutes segment”

Subhead:  “In her first town hall, Weiss expressed some regret over her decision to pull 60 Minutes segment at the last minute”

“During her first address to CBS News employees as editor in chief, Bari Weiss acknowledged that there had been “a lot of noise” about her tumultuous tenure and said that some staffers might decide they don’t support her or want to continue working at the company.

“ ‘I just want to start by saying: I get it. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/27/bari-weiss-cbs
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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 1/27/26

Headline:  “Weiss and the Wary”

Subhead:   “The new CBS News chief finally addressed her skeptical newsroom, presenting her vision of the network’s future and fielding tough questions about her editorial views—though some staffers told Status they left unconvinced.”

Read the article at:

https://www.status.news/p/bari-weiss-cbs-news-town-hall

Media Tiptoeing Around Murder?

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Article in Common Dreams by Brad Reed, 1/26/26

Headline: “Critics Warn Corporate Media Is Failing in Face of White House Lies About Alex Pretti”

Subhead:  “ ‘There were lies,’ former CNN anchor Jim Acosta said of the Trump administration’s response to Pretti’s death. ‘Lie after lie after lie.’ “

“Two prominent critics warned on Monday that the US corporate media is not being aggressive enough in calling out the Trump administration’s lies about Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident who was slain by federal immigration agents over the weekend.

“Writing on her Substack page, former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan expressed concern that many mainstream media publications were taking a wait-and-see approach in the wake of Pretti’s shooting, even as the Trump administration, Fox News, and other right-wing media websites were pumping out false claims about Pretti brandishing a weapon at federal officials and being a “domestic terrorist.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/alex-pretti-corporate-media

CBS Turning on Trump?

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Article in The Daily Beast by Laura Esposito, 1/26/26

Headline: “MAGA-Curious CBS Boss’ Outlet Calls Out ICE Barbie ‘Lies’ “

“Even CBS News’ new, controversial editor-in-chief couldn’t look away from the killing of yet another U.S. citizen in Minneapolis.

“Bari Weiss’s anti-woke Substack, The Free Press, broke ranks with the Trump administration in a blistering editorial that slammed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s defense of a border patrol agent who fatally shot VA nurse Alex Pretti, 37. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-curious-cbs-boss-outlet-calls-out-ice-barbie-lies/

Takeover of Local Newspapers?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Lois Parshley, 1/26/26

Headline:  “Carpenter Media’s Ominous Takeover of Local News”

Subhead:  “In just a few years, a publisher based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has become the country’s fourth-largest newspaper operator. Some reporters wonder if it isn’t the cruelest.”

“. . .Carpenter Media Group, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has grown into a media empire at a rapid clip. When the company bought the Homer News, in March of 2024, it operated just twenty-seven publications in a handful of states. Today, it runs more than two hundred and fifty outlets in the United States and Canada and is America’s fourth-largest newspaper company. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/feature/carpenter-media-ominous-takeover-local-news-tuscaloosa-alabama-homer-alaska-pleznac-charlie-kirk.php